Charges expected against Montgomery County owner of two horses found dead in stalls

Police investigated this site where dead horses were found in Montgomery County, Jan. 4. (Montgomery County Police Reporter photos)

Animal abuse charges are pending against the owner of two horses found dead in their stalls with no food or water, Montgomery County officials said.

The horses were found about noon Jan. 4 in a barn on FM 2854 west of Conroe, said Deputy Don Smith, a livestock officer for the Montgomery County Precinct 4 Constable's Office.

"It was a pretty nasty scene," Smith said Friday. "I found two horses in two separate stalls that had been deceased about a week. Neither had food or water. There were no water buckets at all in the pen."

Smith said he expects that paper work for filing criminal charges, including statements from another officer who responded to the scene, will be ready sometime next week to submit to the county district attorney's office.

"In 12 years of livestock work, this is the first time I've ever found (animals) locked in the stalls and starved to death," Smith said.

A third horse was loose on the property. It's unclear if that horse had been locked up in a third stall and somehow managed to get out, he said.

"He ate enough vegetation on the property to survive, but there was no water on location on that lot," Smith said.

Although extremely underweight, the third horse is "eating like it's going out of style" and is expected to survive, he said.

The owner told authorities that he had been out of town and had asked a friend to care for the horses in his absence, Smith said.

He didn't know how long the owner had been away, but it would have taken the horses at least a week to starve to death, depending upon their prior condition, Smith said.